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A traditional way for visitors to travel in Europe is to carry your belongings on your back and explore on foot, taking advantage of reduced cost housing in guest houses and hostels, and spending time to meet the locals. Backpacking tour companies offer varying levels of support, from taking care of everything, to simply supplying you with a map and itinerary. They can be very useful if you want to backpack through Europe, but still want some support.

Busabout

Busabout offers a number of pre-planned hop-on hop-off routes all over Europe, from Spain to Germany to Italy, and all the countries in between. These include travel on the comfortable bus, which includes entertainment options like movies and music; access to the Busabout accommodation network, which includes local housing fit for any budget; and access to your own personal travel section of the Busabout website to plan your trip. Trips don't have a time limit, so you can choose to do half of a route in the spring and the rest of a route in the fall, as another bus will always come along. Flexiroutes are also available, where you pay for a set number of connections rather than traveling a particular section of the country, and one-way routes are also available. Busabout 011 (+44) 131 557 9393 www.busabout.com

EF College Break

This company focuses on providing fully-supported backpacking trips for college students between semesters and school years. They offer trips all over the world, including Africa, Thailand, Australia and all over Europe. Unlike many backpacking tours, these are comprehensive, including roundtrip airfare, accommodation, breakfasts, motorcoach transport and even admission to some attractions. The ultimate trip is the Grand Tour of Europe which takes in the whole continent over 30 days and is surprisingly reasonable with a 2010 price tag of $3,545. Smaller tours take in just a few countries and cities, such as the Big Three: Paris, London and Rome, or Turkey, Greece and Italy. EF College Break 800-766-2645 efcollegebreak.com

Pure Adventures

National Geographic chose this company as one of the best adventure tour groups in the world in 2007. They offer self-guided tours all over Europe, both for cyclists and hikers. The self-guided hiking tours give travelers a chance to get much more intimate with a country than most backpacking tours. Tours include maps and itineraries, taxi transfers, breakfasts and accommodation. Upgrades are available to select more luxurious hotels, but a five-night hiking tour in Burgundy, France, started at $1,165 in 2010, based on double occupancy. Other countries available include Ireland, Croatia, Holland and Switzerland, and custom tours are available to fit your hiking regimen or your time frame. Pure Adventures 800-960-2221 pure-adventures.com

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About the Author

Beau Prichard has been a freelance writer and editor since 1999. He specializes in fiction, travel and writing coaching. He has traveled in the United Kingdom, Europe, Mexico and Australia. Prichard grew up in New Zealand and holds a Bachelor of Arts in writing from George Fox University.

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student lovers backpacking in barcelona image by Barcabloo from Fotolia.com